Forgotten Shadows
by kaloy
Summary: A multiple-part story dealing with Kaoru and Kenshin. I suck at summaries.


Disclaimer: Rurouni Kenshin belongs to Nobuhiro Watsuki. I'm only ripping him off. I fervently hope nobody sues me. Some details of this fanfic might be completely wrong. You have been warned. Don't take this fanfic too seriously. If there are incorrect details  
or ideas, please tell me. I might not be able to correct them for this fanfic, but I may be able to correct future mistakes.  
  
Brace yourselves for you are now entering a world of implausible physics... -_^ 

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Forgotten Shadows: a Rurouni Kenshin fanfic by kaloy 

Prologue: 

"Who do you think they'll send?" 

"I don't know. I heard they were sending over some guys from Kyoto or something." 

"Maybe they'll send the Shadow."

With the number of skilled killers in the employ of the most powerful men in Japan during the Bakumatsu no Douran, not many names were able to strike fear into the hearts of hardened warriors. Among the few though, was the name given to one of the Ishin Shishi's premiere slashers, Shiro Hayashizaki: the Shadow.

"You assholes. Hayashizaki works for the Ishin Shishi," piped in another man. "He's one of us."

"Haven't you learned by now that it doesn't really matter if he is with the Ishin Shishi? Everybody's coming after everybody else right now!" said the man who had voiced the question of who they'll be facing. He was apparently agitated, and was about to say something else when he caught sight of a red-haired young man off to his left.

"Get ready. It's time," the young man said. He moved past the samurai gathered in the room with him. As one, the men put their hands on the hilts of their swords, ready for the battle ahead. 

An onlooker would have been amazed at the perverse amount of respect the older samurai held for the young red-haired man. That amazement would soon turn to respect, and fear, however, if he had a chance to see Kenshin Himura, the Hittokiri Battousai himself, wield his sword against another man.

--

They came in three groups of two, each group coming from a different direction than the others. The first clash was fearsome. Outnumbering those defending the safehouse itself, the attackers were able to decimate the defending forces until only four were left, and only two of those four were still able to fight.

One of them was Kenshin. With every stroke of his blade a man fell, not always in one piece. Just as he was going to finish off the last of the attackers, a sharp cry of pain caught his ears, alerting him to a very unwelcome fact: one of the assassins had managed to find a way inside. 

Running at full speed towards the safehouse, Kenshin realized that the only way anyone could have gotten in was through the back. In their confidence that the cliff jutting out behind the safehouse would serve as a natural defensive structure, they had forgotten that a skilled assassin could also scale it.

The scene inside was not so different from the one outside. Blood was everywhere, and the bodies of the four samurai tasked with defending their charge: an elder member of the Ishin Shishi. The man they were supposed to defend was in a corner, blubbering in pain and clutching the bloody stump that used to be his right hand.

A shuffling sound behind him alerted Kenshin to the assassin's presence. He sidestepped, half turned, and brought his katana up just in time to block the wakizashi coming at him. Almost at the same time, another blade was coming at his sides, forcing Kenshin to twist out of the way of the blade, causing him to strain some of the muscles of his left leg as he overextended it in avoidance of the blade's point.

Kenshin was ready to counter with an attack of his own, but the assassin was nowhere in sight. Every single sound seemed amplified in the safehouse's still darkness, and Kenshin listened intently to every single one of them, hoping to find the assassin and launch the first attack.

A few heartbeats later, the assassin announced his presence again. Off to his left, Kenshin noticed a glint of metal, and at the same time, his eyes caught another hint of a blade off to his right, and another in front of him, and another a bit further to the left. There appeared to be nine people surrounding him, all getting ready to attack.

Kenshin had heard of this technique before. _Ku tsugi no kage_, "nine following shadows", a technique where the user attacks his opponent seemingly from nine directions at once, but in reality attacks only from one of those directions, nine times in succession. The technique only served to confirm Kenshin's suspicions. Only one man was known to use this technique: the Shadow, Shiro Hayashizaki himself. 

Kenshin anticipated where the first attack would come from. The blade to his right moved toward him at great speed, but Kenshin avoided it easily. The second attack managed to nick Kenshin's arm, and the third left a huge gash in his clothing. The fourth hit home, opening up a diagonal wound along Kenshin's back. His left leg was starting to complain of the strain, and it was starting to slow Kenshin's reaction time.

After four more attacks from Shiro, Kenshin finally pinpointed where he was going to be next. A quick horizontal slash caught Shiro by surprise, forcing him to halt the kata for the _ku tsugi no kage_. Another slash came barely an instant after the first one, and Shiro barely had enough time to block Kenshin's attack with his wakizashis. The slash came with such force however that Shiro was forced outside, hitting the cliff face behind the safehouse.

Still shaken from the impact, Shiro didn't have enough time to launch another attack. A rustling above him made him look up, and the last thing he saw was the Battousai's sword coming straight for his head.


End file.
